Dubious Statistics

Damned Lies and Statistics:

Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (Updated Edition)

Description

Here, by popular demand, is the updated edition to Joel Best's classic guide to understanding how numbers can confuse us. In his new afterword, Best uses examples from recent policy debates to reflect on the challenges to improving statistical literacy. Since its publication ten years ago, Damned Lies and Statistics has emerged as the go-to handbook for spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers.

Links

More Damned Lies and Statistics:

How Numbers Confuse Public Issues

Description

In this sequel to the acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics, which
the Boston Globe said "deserves a place next to the dictionary
on every school, media, and home-office desk," Joel Best continues his
straightforward, lively, and humorous account of how statistics are
produced, used, and misused by everyone from researchers to
journalists. Underlining the importance of critical thinking in all
matters numerical, Best illustrates his points with examples of good
and bad statistics about such contemporary concerns as school
shootings, fatal hospital errors, bullying, teen suicides, deaths at
the World Trade Center, college ratings, the risks of divorce, racial
profiling, and fatalities caused by falling coconuts. More Damned
Lies and Statistics encourages all of us to think in a more
sophisticated and skeptical manner about how statistics are used to
promote causes, create fear, and advance particular points of view.

Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think
about public issues: missing numbers are relevant but
overlooked; confusing numbers bewilder when they should inform;
scary numbers play to our fears about the present and the
future; authoritative numbers demand respect they don’t
deserve; magical numbers promise unrealistic, simple solutions
to complex problems; and contentious numbers become the focus
of data duels and stat wars. The author's use of pertinent, socially
important examples documents the life-altering consequences of
understanding or misunderstanding statistical information. He
demystifies statistical measures by explaining in straightforward prose
how decisions are made about what to count and what not to count, what
assumptions get made, and which figures are brought to our attention.

Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think
about public issues. Entertaining, enlightening, and very timely, this
book offers a basis for critical thinking about the numbers we
encounter and a reminder that when it comes to the news, people
count—in more ways than one.

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Stat-Spotting:

A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data

Description

Are four million women really battered to death by their husbands or
boyfriends each year? Does a young person commit suicide every thirteen
minutes in the United States? Is methamphetamine our number one drug
problem today? Alarming statistics bombard our daily lives, appearing
in the news, on the Web, seemingly everywhere. But all too often, even
the most respected publications present numbers that are miscalculated,
misinterpreted, hyped, or simply misleading. Following on the heels of
his highly acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics and More
Damned Lies and Statistics, Joel Best now offers this practical
field guide to help everyone identify questionable statistics.
Entertaining, informative, and concise, Stat-Spotting is
essential reading for people who want to be more savvy and critical
consumers of news and information.

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Websites

I am particularly interested in the ways that questionable numbers
creep into debates about public issues. The book that made the greatest
impression on me when I was a college freshman as Darrell Huff’s How to
Lie with Statistics. As I grew older, I began to appreciate just how
often bad statistics figured in news reports. I decided to write a more
sociological version of Huff’s book–what became Damned Lies and
Statistics. The interest in that book led to two sequels– More Damned
Lies and Statistics and Stat-Spotting.

There are a number of websites
dedicated to statistical literacy or critiques of bad numbers. Let me
recommend a few: